Sun Bank Turned On Lights But Not Crowd

May 25, 1988|By Bob Morris of the Sentinel Staff

Getting lit: Most of the people attending Monday night's lighting ceremony for the new Sun Bank Center must have expected a laser show. After all, the invitations did feature a drawing of the 35-story building with bold beams of light shooting out of those striking green parapets on top. So maybe that explains why there were so few oohs and ahhs after Buell Duncan, chairman of Sun Bank N.A., and Jim Kersey of Lincoln Property Co. flipped a switch that set downtown Orlando's tallest building aglow. Across Orange Avenue at the Citrus Club, where they threw a party so everyone could get a good look at the lights, folks pressed against the windows to admire the $100,000 electrical display. And more than one was heard to sing facetiously, ''Is that all there is?'' No, not exactly fireworks. And not exactly a show stopper like Miami's CenTrust Tower, Florida's tallest building and a nightly monument to skyline art. But not a dud by any means. Bruce Yarnell, the Dallas lighting consultant who orchestrated the lighting job, told those gathered that he was aiming to create ''a playful yet tasteful artistic impression.'' Applause, applause. He succeeded. The Sun Bank Center looks good all lighted up. A nice mix of stateliness and whimsy. My two young sons already are calling it The Ghostbuster Building. And if you can overlook the fact that it sort of leans to one side. . . . No, no. Just kidding. It's a building that does downtown O- Town proud.

Dim that luster: That's the good news. The less-than-good news is that Sun Bank is proceeding with plans to further billboardize downtown by putting a sign on top of its handsome new showpiece. Papers were filed with the Downtown Development Board last week that call for the bank's logo to be plastered on the west side of the building, facing Interstate 4. ''We feel it's an opportunity for identification,'' said Clifford Hames, vice chairman of Sun Bank in Orlando. He said the sign will be ''very low-key, with light letters that don't glare.'' Still, yet another handsome piece of Orlando architecture will be compromised by corporate vanity. Shades of duPont Centre and Olympia Place. Seems that this is a game of tit-for-tat. ''If every other major building in downtown wasn't carrying a corporate logo, then maybe it would be different,'' says Hames. Whatever happened to the concept of leading by example? . . . We just keep getting firster and firster. I've lost track of how many downtown buildings now advertise the First Something Or Other financial institution. But add one to the list now that the Copper Whopper, a.k.a. the 111 North Orange building, has joined the ranks of the billboard buildings. It now advertises Florida First Bank. Or is it First Florida Bank? We have reached the point where they all begin to meld. . . . Sign spotted outside the old Ormond Hotel in Ormond Beach, vacant and scheduled for semidemolition and renovation: ''Ghosts under 12 stay free.''

Good deeds: It looks like Kathy Stilwell will be connecting with Oprah Winfrey. An item in last Wednesday's Column World asked you to help the former teacher of the year at Mollie Rae Elementary School, now suffering from multiple sclerosis, to realize her dream of meeting the popular TV show hostess. You wrote. You called. And now plans are in the works for Stilwell to visit Chicago, sit in on a show and meet Winfrey afterward. Big help came from WFTV-Channel 9's Martie Salt, who made some strategic phone calls to the Winfrey people. Thanks all for coming through. . . . But, boy, was I duped. Another item in that same column mentioned ''Little Buddy,'' the boy in Scotland dying of a mysterious disease, who wanted to collect enough post cards to gain him entry into the Guinness Book of World Records. Hold those cards, folks. And where have I been anyway? A story in the Sentinel from last September, which at least 50 of you have now mailed me, revealed that this was a hoax of monumental proportion. Some slightly tilted bozo dreamed the whole thing up and now the post office in the small Scottish town has been swamped with millions of cards. If, however, you still feel the urge to do good, then just send $5 to a Certain, Local Newspaper Columnist. He is dying of embarrassment for having been taken in.